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| Review
of Hugh Sockett's Creating a Culture for the Scholarship of Teaching By Sherry Linkon |
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| Review
of Hugh Sockett's Creating a Culture for the Scholarship of Teaching By Sherry Linkon |
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© Copyright 2000 by Sherry Linkon. The right to make additional exact
copies, including this notice, for personal and classroom use, is
hereby granted. All other forms of distribution and copying require
permission of the author. |
The Beginnings of Social Change In "Creating a Culture for the Scholarship of Teaching," Hugh Sockett makes several useful and thought-provoking contributions to the growing conversation about improving teaching and it status in higher education. Most usefully, he identifies three obstacles that we face if we are committed to developing scholarship of teaching and learning not only within our own work but on our campuses and in the profession. He also offers six provocative and, happily, somewhat practical proposals for changes that must occur if we are to make progress. Sockett is correct that the context for assessment of teaching is laden with distrust and bureaucracy, and it is therefore difficult to persuade either faculty or administrators to buy into a more research-based approach. At the same time, based on my own research and what I've heard from colleagues in the Carnegie Scholars program, Sockett may be overstating the case. It's no doubt true that many administrators, like many faculty, have relied too heavily on poor assessment tools, like student course evaluations, that provide numbers but little real information. Old habits die hard, especially when they fit so well into busy schedules and the high levels of interpersonal tension that often exist on college campuses. Learning to use more "moral" approaches, as Sockett terms them, that emphasize description and explanation rather than mechanistic measurement or judgment, will not come easily. Even where there is overt support, changing old patterns requires significant energy and courage. But it is also true that more colleges and universities across the country have actively supported scholarship of teaching and learning over the past few years. Some have provided financial and professional support for Carnegie Scholars from their campuses, while others have joined the "Campus Conversations" project co-sponsored by the Carnegie Academy for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and the American Association of Higher Education. As with any form of social change, these beginnings may not be sufficient, but they are making a difference, as academics develop better models for evaluating faculty work, as more professors are learning critical strategies for focusing on and assessing student learning, and as the very idea of scholarship of teaching and learning gains attention and respect.
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